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Logging off… for now
I’ve been on Twitter (now called “X”) since I was 10. Since that time, it has served largely as a stream of consciousness of almost every passing thought I have had since then: good or bad. I’ve been concerned about how heavily I use social media, and Twitter in particular, and its impact on my…
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The crisis of the 2021 Samoan election
Last month’s election in the small Pacific Island nation and the constitutional crisis that continues into this week has me asking: Was Samoa ever a democracy? By any intuitive account, yes. It has free elections for a parliament from which ministers are appointed and a head of state is elected, and the Samoan constitution grants…
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A note on self-defence
The phrase “Israel has the right to defend itself” is said almost-reflexively in response to every single Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Of course, few here in the West would challenge this notion (and I certainly don’t seek to). Instead, I argue that the term self-defence has been erroneously deployed in this instance. The airstrikes, largely…
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I locked a DVD case by accident…
I try to open a DVD case that has one of those awful locks that stores used to put in DVDs for 14 minutes.